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certain fly tiers
certain flies
any old fly, if it catches my eye.

I definitely lean toward special interest in certain fly tiers.
Oddly (particularly so for this group) I don't have much interest in
English or Catskill flies. I think they're fine flies. But my main interest
is local. Maybe that (local tiers) the missing criteria in the list above:
I'm most interested in Western USA good old boys, like myself.
Speaking of which, I'm about as far Western USA as you can get right now.
I caught my biggest bonefish ever just yesterday: 8.6 pounds,
in the harbor, in front of the Honalulu airport, on a deer hair
crab tied by local guide and tier Mike Hennesey.
:=))

Ok, that post title pun didn't work.
I fished 3 days with Mike Hennessey and Dave Hill. They have an aluminum wall-eye boat
nicely converted to a flats boat, with casting platform, knee braces and deep-well stipping
basket. The other (better known) outfit is "Nervous Waters." They do wade trips only (I think).

We spent most of two days in Honalulu harbor. The first day we saw lots of tailing fish.
The average size was amazing. But it was so socked in with clouds you couldn't see the fish.
You had to find a tail and cast to that. The guide went off with my wife Adele and I walked
the flats for 3 hours or so. I only hooked one fish. But I caught it, landed it and weighed
it....with a fancy digital readout thingy and it was a legitimate 8.6 pound fish.
I saw several substantially bigger than that. In seven trips to the Bahamas my biggest fish
was seven pounds. In three days in Hawaii I landed two over 8 pounds.

Drawbacks? In Honalulu harbor there is an all-day non-stop stream of Japan
Airlines 747s taking off. On the other side of the island, at Kaneohe, where it was stunningly beautiful,
there is a Marine air base with a non-stop stream of helicopters making practice flights.

We had some sun and many clouds there too. In the Bahamas, when the bonefish
aren't happening, you can catch snappers and barracuda. In Hawaii the only
alternative is deep water fishing, and you can't do that in a flats boat.


Fishing from the front of a flats boat is OK--especially with 8-10 pound monsters
stripping out huuuuuge lengths of backing. But I still prefer to wade the flats
looking for tailers in shallow water. You can do that in Honalulu airport,
and apparently in several other spots too (that we did not go to) but the
Marine base flats (accessible by boat only) are too deep to wade most times,
and you can only get out to them by boat. But oh my my did we see some biiiiig fish.
.....fish that made the 8 pounder look a tad small.